Location: In the heart of the Midwest lies the state Iowa, which borders to Minnesota in the north, is separated from Wisconsin and Ilinois in the east by the Mississippi, in the south bordering to Missouri and in the west to South Dakota and Nebraska where the Big Sioux River and the Missouri River form natural boundaries.

Climate: Iowa has a continental climate: hot and humid summers and extremely cold winters. In the long winter months there is a lot of snow and snowstorms are a frequent phenomenon. Droughts can occur anywhere in the state, which can be long and severe especially in the nortwest of Iowa.

Time difference: Central time zone. 7 hours earlier than the Netherlands (Europe).

History of Iowa:

The first people who settled in the area now called Iowa, were Native Americans: The so-called mound builders. They were farmers who threw up large earthen mounds, mainly to bury their dead. The French explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette were the first whites visitors to Iowa. They penetrated this area when they floated down the Mississippi River in 1673. For more than a century this area was only visited by fur traders, missionaries and explorers but none of these visitors stayed here. It was until 1788 that French colonists founded the first white settlement in the place where now the city of Dubuque is established. In the thirties of the 19th century, large numbers of immigrants from all parts of Europe, as well as Americans from other states, moved to Iowa, which was admitted to the United States as the twenty-ninth state in 1846. Also, immigrants continued to migrate in the second half of the 19th century. For this reason it is now dotted with villages that cleary bear the stamp of an ethnic group, such as Pella and Orange City, founded by immigrants from the Netherlands.